We’ve had some rainy weather lately. That’s good for everything around here. The slugs and snails have been out. I see lots of them as I’m walking to work. Fortunately I haven’t seen them going after our porch garden. Aphids, yes. They haven’t been too bad. Since the garden is so small it’s easy enough to check over the plants and get rid of the aphids by hand. Most of the plants have been doing real well. I have some new lettuce plants coming up. The zucchini has been blooming and we’ve seen some bees flying around it. The other squash plants are getting bigger so hopefully they’ll bloom soon too. I had to stake up one of the Thai Pink Egg tomato plants. The soil in the Earthboxes is pretty loose and the plant was getting blown around by the wind. The others seem to have anchored themselves better and haven’t been bothered by the wind.
Our plans to pay off our debts took a bit of a backward turn recently. Things come up sometimes. Regardless we plan to move ahead. I updated the budget and we’ll keep plugging away at it. It’d be nice to get a big lump sum of money. Maybe if I land a big publishing contract. Even if that doesn’t happen we’ll make it eventually. By the end of the year I’ll know if voters have decided to kill library and other services by voting for I-864. On a personal level I-864 could mean my job would be lost. Bad for me but a 25% cut in library services is going to bad for the community. Everyday I work with families, children, new citizens, students, retired folks, and community groups — all of whom depend on the library for education, entertainment, and information. The previous initiatives passed have already hurt libraries and made it much harder to provide services. This time around it will cripple most libraries in Washington. Buildings around the state will close. Those that remain open will be on reduced hours with insufficient staff. Not to mention how many more books and other materials won’t be purchased. It’s up to the voters. Hopefully they’ll realize how much they are going to give up.
If I remain employed this next year then we hope to finally move out of the apartment sometime late next year. We will have paid off enough of our debts. We’ll finally break down and buy a car (we’ve managed without a car for fourteen years) and then look for a nice rural property in the area. Eventually we want to buy property in Ferry County and build a homestead out there. We’ll probably take it in stages until we’re ready to make the transition to being fully self-employed. Those publishing contracts would help!
For now we’re doing what we can here. Small steps. Reading, studying what others are doing. Planning. Trying out what we can like the porch garden.
